The invention relates in general to protective armor and in particular to protection for top gunners in tactical vehicles and armored vehicles.
Armies have utilized metal and ceramic armor to protect troops from incident projectiles and explosive fragments. Soldiers situated behind these types of armor, however, have little visibility and are thus unable to locate threats, leaving them exposed to further attack. Viewing the battlefield is currently done by rising above the armor, engaging the enemy while above the armor, and then dropping down when fired upon. This method leaves the soldier exposed while engaging the enemy and does not lend itself to giving him both protection and battlefield awareness.
Traditional ballistic windows are used to mitigate lack of visibility, but no arrangement has been devised that provides high visibility and overall armor protection, without compromising the structural integrity of the armor system. Commonly used “flat” ballistic windows are fitted into traditional armor packages to help increase visibility. This solution suffers from the tradeoff of reducing protection while providing only a small increase in visibility. Providing a soldier with a full 360 degrees of visibility would dramatically increase his ability to rapidly identify and engage targets on the battlefield.